Xinhua News Review | Difficulty in Covering the Essence of Suppressing China through "Risk Reduction" - One of the series of comments on the rhetoric trap of "risk reduction"

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, July 16 (Xinhua) - One of the series of comments on "Risk Reduction": Difficulty in Covering the Essence of Preventing China

Xinhua News Agency reporter Gao Wencheng

On the issue of relations with China, US high-ranking officials have repeatedly stated that they do not seek confrontation, cold war, or "decoupling" with China, but instead focus on the so-called "de risk". However, looking at how they promote "de risk", it will be found that what changes is only the caliber, what remains unchanged is the behavior - labeling economic and trade activities with China as "risk", promoting the "de sinicization" of key industrial chains and supply chains, and creating "small courtyard walls" that disrupt normal Sino foreign technological exchanges... This is not "decoupling", but what is it? The real intention behind the trap of American rhetoric is to decouple from China under the guise of "risk reduction" and continue to contain and isolate China.

Risk is inherent in all economic activities, and preventing it is not something new. After the COVID-19, Ukraine crisis and other events, some countries advocated strengthening the construction of the industrial chain, improving the resilience of the supply chain, and proposed "differentiation risks". Reasonable security concerns can be understood, but the United States has used this mentality to generalize security risks, sell security anxiety, expand the concept of "de risk", and through continuous hype, utilization, and alienation of this concept, associate it with China. The intention is to equate China with "risk", simplify the "de risk" path to "de sinicization", and use this as a new outfit for the containment strategy against China. The World Newspaper Syndicate website stated in an article that the new rhetoric of "de risk" implies inherent risks in trade with China, and China believes that there is no substantial difference between "de risk" and "decoupling", which is "reasonable".

The script has changed, but the underlying purpose has not changed at all. US National Security Assistant Sullivan, while saying that seeking to "de risk" is not "decoupling," talked extensively about the US's strategy of setting up so-called "small courtyards and high walls" in key technological areas. After suffering huge losses and seriously disrupting the stability of the global industrial and supply chains, which has attracted a lot of criticism, the United States has implemented a series of operations with the aim of excluding China from key supply chains, restricting China from climbing higher up the value chain of the industrial chain, curbing and suppressing China's development and growth, in order to maintain its hegemonic monopoly advantage.

Professor Kim Ryong hee of the Department of Economics and Finance at Daegu University in South Korea said that if the modifier "selectivity" is added before "decoupling", the substantive difference between "risk-taking" and "decoupling" will disappear. According to an article in the South China Morning Post, regardless of the language used by the United States, the underlying motivation is still hostility towards the development aspirations of other regions and maintaining the hegemonic position of the United States.

The United States has used "four axes" to "decouple": imposing sanctions on Chinese companies, expanding the scope of US investment restrictions on China, strengthening trade restrictions on advanced chip technology and other fields, and hindering scientific and technological cooperation and exchanges between China and the United States. Nowadays, although the United States has expressed its unwillingness to "decouple" and wants to "de risk", none of the relevant policies have loosened, but have intensified. In early May, the majority leader of the United States Senate, Schumer, announced a bipartisan proposal called the "China Competition Act 2.0", attempting to win "competition" with China by restricting investment and technology flows to China. On June 12th, the US Department of Commerce included 31 Chinese entities primarily involved in aviation related fields in the principle prohibited export "entity list". The United States not only abuses its own export control measures, but also does not hesitate to harm its friends and enrich itself, coercing and luring some allies to join the small circle of export restrictions on China.

In addition, in the so-called "Indo Pacific region", efforts are being made to promote the "Indo Pacific Economic Framework" and the "Four Party Alliance for Chips"; Strengthening the US Europe Trade and Technology Commission mechanism in the Atlantic region; Launching the "Partnership for Economic Prosperity in the Americas"... In these "small circles", the United States has inserted many exclusive clauses, frequently hyping up so-called "economic coercion" by China, kidnapping and luring allies to form "supply chain alliances", and creating a "parallel system" that excludes China. The pace of "decoupling" or "selective decoupling" between the United States and China is actually accelerating.

No matter how the wording changes, the United States has not changed its approach of viewing US China relations with a Cold War mindset, its ideological orientation of politicizing economic and technological issues, and its goal of containment and suppression of China has not changed. The United States, in order to maintain its own hegemony, goes against the will of other countries to promote "camp building", destroys global industrial and supply chains, and poses a real risk to world prosperity and stability.

In fact, the United States' strategy of "risk reduction" has caused widespread vigilance. British scholar Niall Ferguson, who works in the United States, wrote that Europeans question the American version of "de risk" for three reasons: first, they view the US Inflation Reduction Act as a Biden version of "America First"; Secondly, they realized that Sullivan's "high wall" would also prevent Europe from participating in artificial intelligence competitions; Thirdly, they are concerned that the US policy of technological containment of China will have unexpected consequences. The Carnegie Institute for International Peace in the United States has warned, "The technological foundation of the United States is closely linked to China in a global technology network. If this network is arbitrarily cut off and restructured, the consequences will be terrifying and dangerous."

Report author Jon Bateman believes that cutting off technological ties with China would harm the United States itself: firstly, American companies such as Apple cannot replicate their supply chains outside of China at similar costs, and decoupling would cause great harm to important US technology companies; Secondly, the United States needs Chinese technology products and raw materials in certain fields, and decoupling will cause huge difficulties for the United States to apply related technologies and manufacture related products; Thirdly, decoupling will hinder the exchange of scientific and technological talents between the two countries, posing huge challenges to the fields of scientific research, education, and other fields in the United States.

On the 9th, when summarizing his visit to China, US Treasury Secretary Yellen said that he heard China's concern that "de risk" is equivalent to "decoupling", and stated that solving related issues is very important. In the process of dealing with the United States, China has always listened to its words and observed its actions. We hope that the United States truly understands China's intentions and proves through practical actions that it does not seek to "decouple" from China, fundamentally correcting its erroneous perception of China and changing its erroneous policy towards China.